


Lingering Touch

by evilwriter37



Series: Comfortember 2020 [8]
Category: DreamWorks Dragons (Cartoon), How to Train Your Dragon (Movies)
Genre: Episode: s08e08 Triple Cross, Implied/Referenced Sexual Harassment, M/M, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-18
Updated: 2020-11-18
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:47:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27615074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evilwriter37/pseuds/evilwriter37
Summary: While flying with Viggo, Hiccup suffers a panic attack.
Relationships: Viggo Grimborn/Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III
Series: Comfortember 2020 [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2008639
Comments: 8
Kudos: 58





	Lingering Touch

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: PTSD + panic attacks

Hiccup was flying Toothless with Viggo behind him when it happened. His chest tightened, his throat constricted, his breaths came too fast. He started to make for land, knowing what was happening to him and knowing that he couldn’t fly while it was happening.  _ It  _ was what he’d taken to calling panic attacks. They were sudden onsets of intense panic with seemingly no trigger. But maybe there was a trigger this time. Maybe it was because Viggo was behind him on Toothless, and he’d told Hiccup Toothless would die if they didn’t get the antidote for the red oleander in time. 

“What are you doing?” Viggo asked. He held onto Hiccup’s waist as they angled towards an island, speeding towards it. Hiccup had to get out of the air  _ now.  _

“C-can’t talk,” Hiccup got out. He really couldn’t communicate all that well right now. His chest was hurting and his vision was getting blurry. 

Finally, they landed, and Hiccup quickly dismounted, paced a few steps away. He tugged at his hair, tears coming to sting his eyes. His breathing was coming all too fast. 

“Hiccup, what is it?” Viggo asked. He too, had dismounted, and both he and Toothless were looking worried. Surely his worry was fake. How could it not be? This man didn’t give a damn about him and never had. 

The things Viggo had done to him and his friends, the things he’d said to Hiccup when no one was around or watching, the vulgarities whispered in his ear as he held him against him. It had never gotten farther than that, but Hiccup’s mind was conjuring all of that now. Viggo had hurt him mentally more than physically. Ryker was the Grimborn brother to get physical. Viggo, on the other hand, played mind games. And now, Hiccup’s mind was seemingly broken from it. 

How could Hiccup explain what was going on to the very man that had caused this? How could he form words that meant something?

“Hiccup, stop pacing,” Viggo said. There was a hand on his shoulder, and Hiccup tried to throw it off, but Viggo was stronger than him. He made Hiccup turn to face him, and there was deep worry in his one brown eye and his blinded blue one. “Breathe. Just take a deep breath.”

Hiccup shook his head, pulled at his hair till he thought it would come out. “Can’t.”

“Yes you can. Do it with me. In.” Viggo took a deep breath in. “Out.” He exhaled, and they were so close that Hiccup could feel his breath on his face.

Hiccup tried to follow along, wondering why Viggo was helping him through this. His mind was racing. What was he even doing with Viggo in the first place? Yes, they had to get Krogan and Johann’s Dragon Eye and lenses, but why was he helping Viggo? What had come over him? Hiccup suddenly wished he hadn’t gone to meet him the night before. 

Hiccup felt dizzy, like he was going to fall over or faint. His knees buckled, and Viggo caught him, helped him down to sit on the ground.  _ Why  _ was Viggo helping him? 

Viggo knelt in front of him, ran his hands over Hiccup’s arms in an attempt at a soothing gesture. 

“Breathe, Hiccup. You can do it.”

So, Hiccup followed Viggo’s breaths, and in about a minute or so, he could see clearly again, and his chest wasn’t aching as much. He could breathe. 

“That’s it,” Viggo said. He sat on the ground with Hiccup. “Now, what was that about?”

Hiccup looked away, didn’t answer for long moments. Finally: “You.”

“Me?”

“ _ Yes, you _ ,” Hiccup replied, shooting him a glare. “I was… thinking of all the things you’ve done to me, all the things you’ve said to me.”

Viggo sighed, ran a hand through his close-cropped hair. “Well, then, I can understand.”

Silence. Toothless came over, nudged Hiccup on the shoulder, and Hiccup turned to press his head against his snout. He didn’t want to lose Toothless. Gods, he felt like he was going to start crying when all he wanted to do was keep his composure in front of this man. 

“I’m sorry.”

The words fell into the silence like a heavy stone dropping into a pool of water. At first, there was nothing, but then the ripples hit Hiccup. 

“What?” He turned his head to look at Viggo.

“I’m apologizing,” Viggo told him, and his voice sounded so sincere. Hiccup knew he was a good liar, but when he met his eyes, he didn’t see a lie in them. “I’m sorry for the grief I’ve caused you and your friends.”

“And what about poisoning Toothless?” Hiccup still couldn’t accept this apology.

“A ploy to get you to help me,” Viggo answered. “Red oleander is harmless to dragons.”

Hiccup looked at Toothless, then back at Viggo. So… his dragon wasn’t dying? The internal agony Hiccup had been feeling about his impending death had been all for naught? 

Hiccup suddenly lunged at Viggo, knocking him flat on his back, hands going to his throat. 

“You’re such a fucking liar!” Hiccup yelled. He kept his hands there, but he wasn’t choking Viggo, couldn’t bring himself to do that. But maybe the threat of it could work. “So you lied to me about the poison and just let it torment me?” Hiccup asked. “You think you can apologize after  _ that? _ ”

Viggo didn’t try to pry Hiccup’s hands off of him. 

“Hiccup, I truly am sorry. I saw no other way to get your help.”

Hiccup realized that he was telling the truth. There  _ had  _ been no other way to get Hiccup to help him, because he wouldn’t have done it without the coercion. 

He let go of Viggo, sat back, let the man rise and rub at his throat. 

“So Toothless isn’t dying.”

“No.”

“You know I could just leave you here,” Hiccup said. There was an implication in those words, the implication that he’d be leaving Viggo to die out here. 

“And that’s well within your right,” Viggo said. “But I know the layout of Krogan and Johann’s camp. You need me to find the Dragon Eye and the lenses.”

Hiccup ground his teeth together. He hated it, but Viggo was right. He needed him.

“After that I’ll disappear.”

For some reason, that struck Hiccup in the chest. He glanced up at him. He… didn’t want him to disappear, he realized. He’d gotten so used to having Viggo in his life that the idea of not having him there was strange. 

“I don’t want you to,” Hiccup told him honestly. They were laying themselves bare for the other, and Hiccup felt vulnerable with those words and what they couldn’t possibly mean, but that didn’t mean he shouldn’t have said it. 

Viggo appeared a little shocked.

“Then what do you want?”

Hiccup shook his head. “I don’t know.” He pulled at his hair. “I don’t know. You’re… You leave me so damn confused.”

“That is understandable,” Viggo said. “Maybe you’ll come to your decision on the flight.” He stood, held out his hand for Hiccup to help him do that as well, and Hiccup hesitated, but then took it and let himself be pulled up. 

Viggo’s touch lingered. He held his hand for a few seconds too long, then let go. There was the whisper of a smile on his face. 

Hiccup mounted Toothless, trying to shake the feeling of his touch. It was nothing. It meant nothing. 

“Okay, let’s go,” Hiccup said. “We’ve still got a ways to fly.”

Viggo climbed onto Toothless behind Hiccup, settled his hands on his hips. Hiccup didn’t tell him to move his hands, to stop touching him. Maybe it was because he liked something about the touch. 

Either way, it didn’t matter right now. They had more pressing issues. Hiccup spurred Toothless on, and they took to the sky. 


End file.
